


The Weight of the World

by Spark_Writer



Category: The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: !950s, Angst, Falling In Love, Greaser AU, Love, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-20
Updated: 2015-05-20
Packaged: 2018-03-31 12:20:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3977782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spark_Writer/pseuds/Spark_Writer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are times I want to push him against a wall and kiss him blind, hear the soft thud of two bodies bumping against plaster and wood. </p><p>I roll cigarettes, instead. I get a job pumping gas. I smash words in my teeth, taste the blood burst from them. Words like tradition and masculinity and <em>fag</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Weight of the World

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a tumblr post discussing 1950s Patrochilles headcanons. Comments are always adored.

 

 

 

 

 

The weight of the world is love.  
Under the burden of solitude,  
under the burden of dissatisfaction  
the weight, the weight we carry is love.  
  
\- Allen Ginsberg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With Achilles, I am wild; mind spinning, body thrumming, so cranked, so flipped, every nerve screaming its tension, gears humming, churning, engine pumping, hauling ass, working wild, bent eight, 225 horsepower plus, flooring it at 90 miles per hour. With him, I'm alive, driven crazy by his unapologetic defiance. I look at him and my heart scorches my rib cage. I look at him and he's radioactive, flushed with the light of so many scintillating stars. I look at him and all I can think of is rolling land and endless sky and pouring sunlight. I want to know him inside and out, to experience his darkest emotions, to squeeze his hand so tight it throbs. He is florescence and chaos and clarity. I love him. With every atom of flesh and bone in my body. He's fire, this boy, so bright he blinds. I could spend lifetimes in his light.

 

...

 

Achilles takes us for a ride on his brand spanking new motorcycle as the days slip inexorably into the oppressive heat of summer. I encircle his firm waist with my arms, my whole body pressed to his leather-scuffed back with the wind whistling past, the hum of the motorcycle rumbling beneath us.

"Faster," I urge, although Achilles is already white-knuckling the throttle as if he's never known what it is like to take it slow, because I know he likes it when I am hungry and tender, demanding. The countryside blurs past us in inconsequential streaks. We lean into the wind, feeling the sun sting our skin where it's bare, knowing the powerful exhilaration of being in love. With each other, with life, with the fields upon fields of grass rippling sensuously on all sides. As I grip his body, there is nothing that reminds me more of the fact that today could be the day we die.

 

…

 

 

There are times I want to push him against a wall and kiss him blind, hear the soft thud of two bodies bumping against plaster and wood. 

There are times I want more.

Much more.

His breath, his heart-pound, his mouth, his torso twisting, flying, arching, his eyes on mine, caught, helpless, his wonder, his rapture, his release, his heat in my hand, his stroking and panting and groaning and gasping, his pleasure.

I roll cigarettes, instead. I get a job pumping gas. I smash words in my teeth, taste the blood burst from them. Words like  _tradition_ and  _masculinity_ and  _fag._

 

...

 

All the cool cats tell you not to be sentimental. "Don't let on," they laugh, with tobacco smoke slipping out of their mouths. "Next thing you know everyone'll think you're a fucking Beatnik or something."

But fuck them. Fuck them. Because Achilles's eyes are practically cosmic. The sun goes through them every now and again, and I can see every little detail in perfect focus. The delicate topography of his irises, the infinite blackness of his pupils, the halo of sooty lashes. I love them in so many ways a mathematician would boggle at the calculations and I don't care what the hell anyone thinks. 

 

…

 

We clamber hotly into the backseat of my derelict Cadillac, flushed and fiery and focused, moving as a singular being. I pull back and peer into his eyes for a breathless, dizzy moment. They glow like the lit end of a Marlboro, burning with calm intensity. I lower myself to kiss him and he surges to meet me. Taking no prisoners. Leaving nothing but ash. Neither of is watching Scarlet O'Hara as she wanders around a demolished plantation projected silver in the background.

 

…

 

We stand at the cliff's edge together, kicking roughened pebbles over the edge just to watch them plummet into the mess of navy water and white foam. Achilles laughs; a sound so incandescent I ache, just a little. I turn my head and look at him, the way a spark must look at dry, crisp kindling while the kindling begs to be set aflame.

 

…

 

The morning sun glints off the river like it's tipped with diamond.

"Someday," Achilles says, warm against me, and there is a whole universe in the _someday,_  "We'll do things no one has ever done before."

I listen to the cadence of his voice, inhale his supremely marvelous beauty, feel his pulse drumming just beneath his skin. I think: it'll all end one day. This. Us. Even the goddamn sun will sizzle out and die.

I fumble for his hand and find it, squeezing it until his knuckles turn bone white. "We will," I agree, tremulous.

"Promise me," says Achilles.

 

I do.

…

 

When Achilles speaks, his voice shivers with the fervor of tiny earthquakes. When he sprints with me at dusk, he's a wild thing. Feral. Body vibrant with energy. Hair lifting off his forehead. 

"I love you," I say to him, one lazy August evening. 'Fever' drifts from the Granco radio like sun sliding through Venetian blinds. I'm not sure of the origin of that damning phrase. My lungs and tongue and vocal cords seem to act against my will, wrenching the truth from a place deep in my gut. Achilles does that. He inspires a new and frightening feeling: affection beyond the power of logic. I watch him and realize, with swift and agonizing perspicuity, that he is going to ruin me in the most miraculous way. Maybe he already has. He's dazzling. More than. 

As the Beatniks would say.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr @johnlockpng.tumblr.com.


End file.
